The BEST Gingersnaps

Posted by Kejia:

Recently I had an immense craving for gingersnaps. I love Mark and Spencer's gingersnaps!!! Unfortunately, that is probably a secret recipe because I couldn't find the recipe online. :-( The last time I tried making gingersnaps, I used JoyofBaking's recipe, and they didn't turn out so well. The ginger kick wasn't there, the snap wasn't there, it was just a mildly spiced and soft cookie. Not my type of gingersnap at all. So this time, I used a recipe from Alice Water's cookbook "The Art of Simple Food", from David Lebovitz's website(link below). 

The result? A FANTASTIC, DREAM-COME-TRUE gingersnap. Even though it didn't taste like the M&S's gingersnap, this is probably the BEST homemade gingersnap recipe ever. These cookies were irresistable. I originally wanted to save some cookies for Claire, but ended up finishing all of them because they were THAT good. For me, a perfect gingersnap had to live up to its name. I had to hear a 'snap' when I broke the cookie. And I did. They are wonderfully crispy, not only due to the delightful sugar coating on the outer surface of the cookies, but also because the inner parts were baked to a perfect crisp. The taste of these cookies were perfect. They are loaded with spice, satisfying the ginger addict in me. They were not overly sweet, they were just - oh god, they're perfect. The best homemade gingersnap recipe in the entire world. Not to mention, they're really simple to make, too. 

The smell that wafted through my entire house was lovely. Nothing beats pulling a warm batch of gingersnaps out from the oven on a cold rainy day. 

I did a little experiment as I was making these cookies. I wanted to investigate whether the way the cookie dough was placed on the baking sheet would affect how the cookie's texture. What I did was to place unflattened round balls of dough and another batch that were flattened out on the cookie sheet. The difference between the two types of cookies was way too obvious. The dough that was flattened out resulted in much crispier and 'snappier' cookies while the other one resulted in soft and crumbly cookies. I was definitely leaning towards the gingersnaps with the snap so I proceeded with the latter. You can follow David Lebovitz's recipe if you'd like, where he rolled the cookie dough into a log then sliced the dough, placing the slices on the baking sheet. In this post, I included some steps on how I made these cookies.

Recipe adapted from DavidLebovitz

Ingredients:
2 cups(280g) flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 1/2 teaspoons ground ginger (I used 2 teaspoons for that extra ginger kick)
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
150g butter, at room temperature
2/3 cup(130g) granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4(80g) mild-flavoured molasses(*see note below)
1 large egg, at room temperature
Extra: Coarse sugar crystals for coating cookies(I used raw golden sugar)

*For the Singaporean readers, molasses can be found in the baking section of Cold Storage, and in the organic section of Fairprice Finest. What you are looking for is the organic unsulphured molasses.

Directions:
1. Stir together the dry ingredients.

2. In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat the butter just unti soft and fluffy. Add the sugar and continue to beat until smooth, stopping the mixer to scrape down any butter clinging to the sides of the bowl.

3. Stir in the vanilla extract, molasses and egg.

4. Mix in the dry ingredients gradually until the dough is smooth. See the change in texture?

5. Wrap dough in plastic wrap and chill in fridge for about 30 minutes - 1 hour.
6. Preheat oven to 180ºC/350ºF.
7. Take a small chunk of dough and roll into a ball. Coat the ball in coarse sugar crystals. Place it on the baking sheet and flatten out gently with your finger till about 1cm tall. I sprinkled on some extra sugar after flattening them out. Repeat with the remaining dough.

8. Bake for 10-14 minutes, until deep golden brown. Bake on the lower end of the range for softer cookies(I tried this out, and the result is a softer, crumblier cookie. It is NOT chewy!), and for the snappier ones(^_^), bake at the higher end of the range.

9. Let cookies cool for two minutes on baking tray, then remove them and transfer to a cooling rack. 

Please, please, please do try this out!!!! The resulting cookie will not disappoint. This recipe is way too amazing not to be shared.

Love,
Kejia